Saturday, March 15, 2014

Adam Hamilton's Response to "Three Buckets, Calmly Considered"

After publishing some thoughts this morning on Adam
Hamilton's recent post, "Homosexuality, the Bible, and the United Methodist Church," I received a note from Rev. Hamilton. (Apparently he had tried to leave a comment, but they didn't come through. C'mon, Blogger! Don't make me switch to Wordpress!) He offered this
gracious response to my comments. I appreciate the spirit of Christian
charity and respectful dialogue that characterizes his remarks.

Dear David,

Thank you for your
thoughtful response to my post on The Bible, Homosexuality and the United
Methodist Church. I actually agree with everything you’ve written here.
Unfortunately it is the nature of a blog - 500 to 800 words - that you
have room for a key idea without much background or supporting arguments.
The three buckets metaphor is a small part, two paragraphs in one chapter
of my new book, Making Sense of the Bible.

The book is meant to
foster a conversation among Christians and in the church about the nature of
scripture, how God influenced or inspired the biblical authors, its canonization
and authority, and how we might read it with greater understanding.
Following 18 chapters devoted to these questions, the last 14 chapters
focus on concrete questions I’m regularly asked by lay people confused about
what they read in the Bible.

My experience suggests
that many Christians have a view of scripture that is not carefully examined in
the light of the actual phenomenon of Scripture. If our view of scripture
is overly simplistic, we find ourselves stuck when we face some of the Bible’s
complex and challenging questions. Some of these folks leave the church
because we as pastors have not adequately helped them see the Bible’s
complexity. I think we can do better. My proposals in the book are
a conversation starter. They may not be the right answers, but I’m hoping
they help us find the right answers.

You rightly note that
what was missing was the theological foundation that leads me to speak of the
three buckets, and, I would add, the criteria by which we determine which
bucket a scripture goes in. I devote a fair amount of space to fleshing
that out in the book.

I appreciate you and
your work, David. Thanks for your thoughtful critique of my post!

2 comments:

I appreciate your critique, David, and the response by Adam Hamilton. After reading the aforementioned blog,I found myself dismayed by the lack of substance that I have come to anticipate from Rev. Hamilton. Somehow I had missed that the analogy was part of a greater work... I am pleased to know that it was a "drop in the bucket!" Now, I will look forward to learning more about Rev. Hamilton's thoughts on this important topic!

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About Me

I serve as Academic Dean and Associate Professor of New Testament at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. I care deeply about the Church, United Methodism, biblical scholarship, and issues related to people with disabilities. I value public dialogue on important issues, and I think this should be carried out in fair, measured, and intellectually virtuous ways. Your ideas are welcome in comments, but if you want to drop rhetorical napalm please move on to another blog. I'm on Twitter @utsdoc.